Isabel le Despenser, Countess of Arundel

Isabel le Despenser
Countess of Arundel
Spouse(s)	Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel
Issue Edmund FitzAlan
Father	Hugh le Despenser the Younger
Mother	Eleanor de Clare
Born	1312
Died	1356

Isabel le Despenser (1312–1356) was the eldest daughter of Hugh Despenser the Younger and Eleanor de Clare. She was descended from Edward I of England through her mother, while her father is famous for being the favorite of Edward II of England.

Marriage

Though he had stood against Edward II in the past, Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel had loyally supported him since the 1320s. Thus it must have seemed to be politically prudent to Edmund to marry his heir Richard to the eldest daughter of the King's closest friend and adviser Hugh le Despenser. For Hugh's part, a large incentive for him must have been that he could expect his daughter Isabel would one day become Countess of Arundel.^[1]

On 9 February 1321 at the royal manor Havering-atte-Bower, Isabel was duly married to Richard FitzAlan, the heir to the earldom of Arundel.^[2] Isabel was only eight at the time, while Richard was fifteen (not seven as has been claimed). Their respective ages would come up later when Richard would try to seek an annulment.^[1]

Annulment

Richard and Isabel had one son, Edmund Fitzalan, born in 1327, and in 1331 Isabel's husband became earl of Arundel. However in December 1344 Richard Fitzalan had their marriage annulled on the grounds that he had never freely consented to marry Isabel and that they both had renounced their vows at puberty but had been "forced by blows to cohabit, so that a son was born".^[1] Isabel retired to several manors in Essex that were given to her by her ex-husband. After receiving a papal dispensation, Richard married Isabel's first cousin Eleanor of Lancaster, with whom he had apparently been having an affair.^[1]

Richard and Isabel's only child, Edmund Fitzalan, was rendered illegitimate by this annulment and so was unable to inherit his father's earldom. When his father died in 1376 Edmund quarreled with his half-siblings, the children of his father's second marriage, over inheritance rights. Edmund was imprisoned in the Tower of London until he was released in 1377 by request of his brothers-in-law.

Father's execution

After their father was executed for treason in 1326, Isabel and her youngest sister Elizabeth were the only daughters of Hugh the Younger to escape being confined in nunneries, Isabel because she was already married and Elizabeth because of her youth.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Isabel le Despenser, Countess of Arundel

16. Hugh le Despenser I               8.Hugh le Despencer, 1st Baron le Despencer                       4.Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester                             18. Philip Basset               9. Aline Bassett, later wife of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk                       19. Hawise de Gray               2.Hugh Despenser the Younger                                   20. William de Beauchamp               10. William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick                       21. Isabel Mauduit               5. Isabella de Beauchamp                             22. John Fitzgeoffrey               11. Maud FitzJohn                       23. Isabel Bigod               1. Isabel le Despenser                                         24. Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford               12. Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford                       25. Isabel Marshal               6.Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford                             26. John de Lacy, 1st Earl of Lincoln               13. Maud de Lacy                       27. Margaret de Quincy, Countess of Lincoln               3.Eleanor de Clare                                   28. Henry III of England               14. Edward I of England                       29. Eleanor of Provence               7. Joan of Acre                             30. Ferdinand III of Castile               15. Eleanor of Castile                       31. Joan, Countess of Ponthieu

References

1. Higginbotham, Susan. "Divorce, Medieval Style" Retrieved 15 October 2009. .
2. Given-Wilson (1991), p. 2.

Sources

• Given-Wilson, C. (Jan 1991). "Wealth and Credit, Public and Private: The Earls of Arundel 1306-1397". English Historical Review 106 (418): 26. JSTOR 575362.